USAGE:
“Martinson called the cops and told them to get a patrol car to her house toot sweet.”

4. parry (PAR-ee)

MEANING:
verb tr.: To ward off or evade.
noun: A defensive movement or an evasive answer.

ETYMOLOGY:
From French parez (ward off), imperative of parer (to ward off), from Latin parare (to set or prepare).

USAGE:
“In the way Ryan Gosling parried questions with polite, self-deprecating charm, you could still see the Canadian in him.”

5. Mayday or mayday (MAY-day)

MEANING:
noun: A distress signal; a call for help.

ETYMOLOGY:
Mayday is an international radio distress signal used by ships and aircraft to call for help. It’s a phonetic respelling of French m’aider, from venez m’aider (come and help me), from venir (to come) + me (me) + aider (to help).

USAGE:
“Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter flew to the aid of a yachtsman who made a mayday call this morning off the coast of Raglan.”

“Rooms [at Hotel Bel-Air are] so high-tech I felt like a 747 pilot. Helpful techies arrived promptly no matter how often I radioed Mayday.”

MEANING:
noun:
1. A model of excellence or perfection.
2. A match or an equal.
3. A perfect diamond weighing 100 carats or more.
4. A very large round pearl.
5. A type size of 20 points.
verb tr.:
To compare, parallel, rival, or surpass.

USAGE:
“Mom, a paragon of manners, stresses the importance of offering sincere gratitude before asking for more.”

“The Cavaliere … paragoned her in his song to all the pagan goddesses of antiquity.”

MEANING:
verb intr.: To delay, stay, or wait.
verb tr.: To wait for.
noun: A short stay; a sojourn.
adjective: Of, like, or smeared with tar.

USAGE:
“Although they’ve been criticized for tarrying, county officials say work is progressing.”

“The story of Jesus’s three-day-long tarry with the elders of the temple becomes, in Ms. Rice’s hands, a fever dream.”

“Otters are mainly detected by their characteristic spraints ( = otter dung), which have a tarry smell.”

5. bluff (bluhf)

MEANING:
verb tr., intr.: 1. To mislead or deceive, especially by a false display of confidence.
noun: 2. An instance of bluffing; also one who bluffs.
adjective: 3. Good-naturedly direct in speech or manner.
noun: 4. A broad, steep cliff or promontory. 5. A grove or clump of trees.

USAGE:
“Answer with authority and they’ll believe the bluff. How many of us love that advertisement where the dad tells the kid that the Great Wall of China was built to keep the rabbits out?”

“Kip Hawley, the man who runs the TSA, is a bluff, amiable fellow who is capable of making a TSA joke. ‘Do you want three ounces of water?’ he asked me.”

“Record snowfall of more than 16 feet on the bluff has chased moose to the lower elevations.”

USAGE:
“‘I don’t want to go there,’ said Sharina, who was normally such a tractable child.”

2. bombastic

MEANING:
adjective: Pompous or pretentious (in speech or writing).

USAGE:
“Mr. Satya Nadella is a leader with a low-key style that differs from Mr. Ballmer’s bombastic manner.”

3. impecunious

MEANING:
adjective: Having little or no money.

USAGE:
“The children have no mother, and their father is impecunious, so they have embarked on a series of adventurous money-making schemes.”
“Discounts for the clever or impecunious greatly reduce the sticker price at many universities.”

4. petulant (PECH-uh-lent)

MEANING:
adjective: Bad-tempered; cranky.

USAGE:
“Idol, like the petulant child who can’t understand that her antics have ceased to be entertaining, kept trying to sell it.”

5. incorrigible

MEANING:
adjective: Incapable of being corrected or reformed.

USAGE:
“I’m an incorrigible scavenger. I’ve been known to climb into dump trucks because I’ve seen an interesting table leg sticking out of the rubbish. I’ve furnished whole apartments from things I’ve found on the street.”

ETYMOLOGY:
After Dogberry, a constable in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, in which he goes about his blundering ways while mouthing malapropisms. Earliest documented use: 1801.

USAGE:
“Why doesn’t he do something, then? Ignorant Dogberry! Useless bumpkin! Calls himself a copper and doesn’t even know where to start!”
Edmund Crispin; The Glimpses of the Moon; Gollancz; 1977.

“The mayor of Bangor, Maine, vetoed a time-altering resolution passed by its city council … for which Railway Age lampooned him in an editorial that began ‘A Dogberry who holds the office of mayor.'”
Jack Beatty; Age of Betrayal; Knopf; 2007.